Residency
Thanks to the Seattle Storefronts Project, I have been using the cavernous back portion of an empty storefront in the Pioneer Square district of downtown Seattle. The space is shared with Youth In Focus, a non-profit organization that provides free photography classes to disadvantaged youth. They have the front and I have the back. The back space is huge and it is a real treat to have so much room to shoot.
Here is a little tour-
I recently hosted a First Thursday to my co-worker D.W Burnam and he put together a show featuring his New Yorker friend Anthony Vitale, Brad Winchester and some of his own rarely seen work. Next First Thursday will be curated by Miss Sierra Stinson who puts on shows called Vignettes in her modest apartment every two weeks.
I will continue to use the space through October. The timing for this residency couldn’t have been at a better time. Last month I secured my own workspace. It is just and empty room but hopefully I will have my newly acquired studio in Georgetown ready to go so my move will be seamless.
No CommentsDeborah Butterfield
Deborah Butterfield is an american sculptor who creates life size horses from found materials and cast bronze tree branches and limbs. The Large horses are one solid piece of bronze and are painted so the wood looks very natural. I have seen these horses being installed at the gallery and they are extremely heavy. I had the opportunity to photograph Deborah at her opening at Greg Kucera and I set up behind the gallery with my “portable” darkroom setup.
Here is the one shot of Deborah. It is an 11 x 14 collodion negative scan. I will be printing the negative later.
f4.5 for 4 seconds
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11 x 14 wet plate back For the Deardorff Studio
So I have built a wet plate back for the 8 x 10 Century master studio camera.
I learned a lot on that project and set out to make a back for my Deardorff 11 x 14. The camera came with a spring back so I wanted to use this back as the focusing back instead of making a separate focusing back for the new plate holder. Other than being much bigger, the project went pretty smoothly and the back works very well. The one thing that needs to change is the galvanized darkslide really reacts with any silver nitrate that comes in contact with it. The mild steel on my century back reacts less and works much better. I will change that out soon enough. I made plexiglass reducing inserts for 8 x 10 and 5 x 7.
Chris and Chauney
Chris Engman asked if I would shoot some plates at his wedding reception a while back. They actually eloped in a small airplane in flight way before but wanted to have a reception to satisfy the family. Weddings and large bulky cameras with complicated processes don’t mix but thought it would be a great experience so I said yes. The location required a dark place to sensitize the plates so I set up a darkroom in the bathroom at Chauney’s uncles gallery in Fremont. I used the Century master studio camera on a rolling stand and the Bausch and Lomb 400mm f4.5. There was an alley next to the gallery that was a perfect place to shoot without any traffic. The weather was typical Seattle, heavy overcast with the occasional light sprinkle. The exposures outside were all shot at f4.5 at two seconds.
I did shoot a couple of smaller plates inside the gallery at 8 seconds.
Tom Skerritt
Got an e-mail from the editor of the The Stranger last week to shoot a Mr. Tom Skerritt. When I got the e-mail, I asked my co-worker who he was. He mentioned a few movies and when I finally looked him up, I instantly recognized him and was very excited to be photographing such an accomplished actor. When he finally came in for the shoot he was fascinated by the studio camera and the whole antique process. He couldn’t have been a more pleasant guy to shoot. I didn’t want to waste his time so I got right to work and managed to shoot 3 plates in an hours time. The first shot was way too dark. The second shot is the one that came out the best but the third was pretty good too.
This is the second shot and the one that will probably be on the cover of the Stranger. It was shot at f4.5 for 10 seconds with the Taylor-Hobson Cooke lens on an 8 x 10 peice of glass. The godamn hot plate that use to dry the glass plates was way too hot and the corner cracked. It just broke off a corner and didn’t shatter the plate into bits…… :0/
Right before he left I talked him into posing with the big camera.
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